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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26813023">Sectumsempra: Accident or Tension Resolution?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophieSwiftieSammy/pseuds/SophieSwiftieSammy'>SophieSwiftieSammy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Sectumsempra scene in Harry/Draco storyline, article</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 09:14:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,557</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26813023</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophieSwiftieSammy/pseuds/SophieSwiftieSammy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Today I would like to talk about an incident in ”Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” that has been the topic of many discussions but has never been solved in the books. I am talking about the Sectumsempra scene, where Harry blasts Draco with a curse he read about in the Half-Blood Prince’s book. This is merely an analysis of the books, and not a proved fact, so actually this is simply my opinion.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sectumsempra: Accident or Tension Resolution?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I would like to analyze how J. K. Rowling got confused by what she had written, what she had accidentally brought her characters to, so she decided to drop it.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Today I would like to talk about an incident in ”Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” that has been the topic of many discussions but has never been solved in the books. I am talking about the Sectumsempra scene, where Harry blasts Draco with a curse he read about in the Half-Blood Prince’s book. This is merely an analysis of the books, and not a proved fact, so actually this is simply my opinion.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Firstly, I would like to note that Harry and Draco had been enemies since first year. They had never had one civil conversation and fights were a common occurrence. Harry, though, had never seen Draco as an actual threat - just as a school rival who could do no harm.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">However, the situation changed drastically at the beginning of year 6. The Death Eaters were on the loose, commiting crimes, putting people under the Imperius curse and even going into the Muggle world. Harry was, of course, tense and worried for his friends. In this atmosphere, Harry and Draco met in Madam Malkin’s robe shop. Harry noticed Draco behaving in a strange way - he was trying to hide his left arm and flinched when the seamstress touched it. Harry didn’t know the meaning of it back then, but he was sure something was wrong.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Later Harry, Ron and Hermione tracked Draco down to Knockturn Alley, where they watched him scare Borgin and blackmail him into doing something. Ron and Hermione seemed to forget about this very quickly. Harry, on the other hand, was a bit too obsessed with the two events and kept speaking about them to his friends. It was indeed confusing - why would Harry pay so much attention to something Draco Malfoy was doing?</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Finally, Harry connected the two dots and fell under the impression Draco had become a Death Eater. He bothered his friends with this, but they only laughed it off - and he went to Arthur Weasley. Mr Weasley didn’t take it seriously either, asking Harry if it was just another one of his whims. That means that Harry often talked about Draco, paid attention to him and what he was up to.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">On the train, Harry decided to track Draco down and listen in to his conversations. Harry found his compartment, but yielded no useful information. He became so distracted by Draco changing into his robes that he got hit in the face by Goyle’s luggage (”Harry was so busy staring at Malfoy, he did not notice Goyle reach out for his trunk; as he swung it down, it hit Harry hard on the side of the head”), and Draco noticed him. Later, Draco used Petrificus Totalus on Harry and threw the Invisibility Cloak over him, breaking Harry’s nose in the process. Anyone would get angry when something like this happened. But it seems that Harry forgot about it too quickly. When he got freed by Tonks, he was angry at Snape because Snape was accusing him, and upon arrival didn’t pay much attention to Draco mocking him at all. He seemed busy with other things. After he got the Half-Blood Prince’s book, Harry found a couple of useful spells in it, which he used twice on Filch and once on Crabbe. It is clear he was either trying to ignore Draco (which he wasn’t good at that year) or he forgave him just like that.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Neither of those sounds valid to me. It is obvious there was a lot of tension between Harry and Draco in year 6. Harry organized a whole campaign on following Draco and discovering what he was up to. Draco paid Harry no attention at all, and Harry was just not used to it - if we look in the previous books, Harry had always been the main thing on Draco’s mind. The fact that it had changed made Harry want to find out what Draco was planning. There was, of course, the fact that Harry believed Draco to be a Death Eater and he was worried for the safety of others, but there is an objection to that idea - Ron and Hermione. They had always believed Harry, no matter how crazy he sounded - for example, the voice in year two which turned out to be a basilisk, or the fact that Hermione was sure Harry didn’t put his name in the Goblet. This time, however, they didn’t believe him. They told him to stop following Draco, and it clearly was becoming stranger day by day (”... Harry had never been less interested in Quidditch, he was rapidly becoming obsessed with Draco Malfoy”). Remember, this was the year Harry was made captain and his alleged love interest joined the team. It would be natural for him to invest in Quidditch more than ever. Instead, he kept thinking of how to escape it to go spy.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Then the first attack happened. Harry immediately suspected Draco, which he tried to explain to McGonagall, but she was sure it wasn’t him. Katie Bell had found the package in the girls’ bathroom, obviously, everyone thought the attacker had been female. Harry, though, was sure it had been Draco, and he turned out to be right.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">But it was nothing compared to when Ron was attacked. Harry was very worried, in fact so much he ordered his house elf to spy on Draco when he couldn’t. By that moment he already knew Draco was going to the Room of Requirement, but had no idea what was happening inside. He was planning to change that soon, though.</span><br/>
<br/>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">All in all, that year Harry was under a lot of pressure. His friend getting attacked, Dumbledore showing him the story of Tom Riddle, Harry realizing they were more similar than he had expected, Death Eater problems, Voldemort, the war... And now Draco, too. I would say that his brain was mainly occupied with three things: Draco, Tom Riddle and the dangers to the Wizarding World. Harry could barely withstand it all, constantly receiving new information and trying to prove something to others. In this atmosphere, Draco and Harry just kept staring at each other, glaring and simply behaving in a strange way. Harry was struggling with this tension rising since September 1st, and by that moment, I believe, he was extremely confused by what he actually wanted from Draco. We know Harry wasn’t good at feelings - be it love, friendship, compassion or something else. It’s not that Harry didn’t want to admit it - he himself had no idea.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Next, Harry found two new spells in the Half-Blood Prince’s book - Levicorpus and Sectumsempra. Neither had a description, and Harry used Levicorpus on Ron almost by accident. Even though Hermione was clearly worried, neither Harry nor Ron found the spell dangerous or life-threatening. They considered it more fun than anything, so I would assume that Harry thought the same of Sectumsempra - despite its description ”for enemies”.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Later, Harry was talking to Moaning Myrtle who told him there was a boy who often came to the bathroom to cry. She said that he was alone, that he was being bullied and that he thought no one could help him. Harry considered the idea it could be Draco, but he wasn’t sure. Later though he saw Draco in that bathroom himself - he was passing by when he heard sobs. Draco was saying no one could help him anymore, and he was crying. That was the first time Harry had seen Draco show any emotion at all. For him, Draco had always been that cold Slytherin Prince - and Harry didn’t know what to do with that new information. Already struggling with new unnamed feelings, Harry felt the things get even more complicated when he saw Draco being human, feeling pain. Riled up because of the constant tension, fighting against these unknown emotions, Harry needed to find an exit for all of this. The Sectumsempra scene could be called a culmination of all their tension - Draco started a fight, Harry picked it up. It was a natural thing to happen, the air had been sparkling with tension between them since the beginning of the year.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Unfortunately, J. K. Rowling ended the storyline here, giving it no solution, no ending. Yes, Harry did eventually find out why Draco was a Death Eater, but their relationship did not get a natural ending. We are left with a feeling of uncertainty - what will happen next between them? It was ended so abruptly that both of their characters were ruined. In my opinion, Draco Malfoy would not forget a murder attempt that easily, and Harry Potter (clearly regretting everything, he was so scared for Draco he forgot everything and ran to him after casting the curse) would not leave it at that. He could not just forget! In fact, the author put obstacles in Harry’s way almost deliberately to make him and us forget about that situation (Snape’s detention and Ginny Weasley). I believe she realized where that story was going and she didn’t like it very much, so she rushed to change it. I don’t know whether, if written correctly, the books would’ve ended somewhere else, but what I do know is that Harry and Draco would not have stayed enemies. They would have become at least friends, but, judging by the tension, there is a lot more to it than just friendship.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>It feels wrong to edit the text of the article now that it‘s finished and double-checked, but I need to add this, so I am doing it here. In year five Harry‘s values got turned upside down. He realized his father was no saint, Sirius - his last living relative - died... I guess this is what we would call a turning point in someone‘s life. Harry grew up, he was no longer a little boy who blushed on dates and patted a girl‘s back during a kiss (remember that he also turned sixteen). Year six, and there goes Draco turning Harry‘s head. It‘s almost as if Harry had his second breath opened (sorry for the bad analogy). Something he‘d never thought of before came out onto the surface.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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